Thank you for highlighting the unsavory conditions at Norwegian, above.
Perhaps one day, you and your kind may provide a more convincing argument in defending the regime - that would indeed be refreshing.
Here is a piece of advice for you from nearly 30 years of flying, and well over two decades of doing it professionally on three different continents:
The industry is a mess and there is nobody who is going to look out for you, not your union, not your company, not your colleagues. And every new airline that comes along is ALWAYS accused of "lowering the bar", or "dragging down the profession". Anyone that innovates, regardless of industry, is considered dangerous and faces opposition (look at the opposition to Uber or the issues Elon Musk is facing getting his Tesla cars to the market in a lot of countries). As time passes, the innovator or new entrant becomes the establishment and soon another new entrant is branded as "evil".
Let's look at some of the airlines in North America as an example. In the early 1980s a new ultra-low cost airline called PeoplExpress was founded. Pilots were poorly paid, lacked union protection, and were forced to do jobs like taking tickets, helping to load bags, and clean the cabin. They were considered dangerous and their pilots were often accused by their peers as lower the bar of the profession. Fast forward 30 years and where are all those guys who were working for PeoplExpress? They are all senior captains at United (Continental bought PeoplExpress and now Continental has merged with United). So the guys who were at one point lowering the bar are now the senior ALPA members at one of the largest legacy airlines in the world.
Southwest was also considered dangerous at one point, so much so that the establishment went to court to fight them.
Virgin America was considered the worst airline in North America by the established airlines and the unions. The pilots were treated poorly and looked down upon for..."lowering the bar" (see a common theme here?). Now VX is a proud ALPA member and being merged with another legacy airline.
Southwest airlines required their prospective pilots to get a 737 type rating for nearly 40 years, only recently dropping the requirement. While SWA was never officially tied to the type rating mills, they certainly had a close relationship with one or two, and thousands of pilot shelled out thousands of dollars to get their 737 ratings hoping for a shot with SWA.
So my point is that while the idea of paying for a type rating, or providing a bank guarantee, or paying for training, or paying for line experience, may not be palatable for most of us, the reality is that this is overwhelmingly what the industry is. For every guy that gets hired by a big legacy airline, has everything paid for, and has a nice trouble free 30 year career before riding off into the sunset on his nice pension, there are 20 or 30 other guys who have to bounce around between multiple airlines, working multiple contracts and various parts of the world, or who end up flying for second rate carriers. If you are certain that you are going to land your dream job at Lufthansa, Delta or Qantas, then go ahead and roll the dice and be thankful if you land it. But refusing another job because they are "lowering the bar" will do nothing to change the industry. The only thing that will change the industry is the market.
Here is a piece of advice I got from an acquaintance of mine. At 25 years old he was hired by PeoplExpress and is now a senior 777 captain at United based in EWR. When he was hired at PeoplExpress, friends and acquaintances of his that got hired at PanAm, TWA and Eastern all accused him of lowering the bar. He has ended up having a nice and relatively steady career, while most of them have ended up bouncing around with several different airlines. His advice to me was to always take the best available offer that you have, even if it may not be the best job out there. Because you have no way of knowing what will happen over the next 10, 20 or 30 years. What may be a crap job today can end up being the best job in 20 years, and the best job today may not exist in 20 years.